Join The Selfish Movement: Announcing My Fake Candidacy

I know some of you thought “Seriously?” I mean Lebanese folks are known for being selfish, fending for themselves even at the expense of others. It’s even something we boast about when we call someone “7arboo2″. But, we’re not really selfish in the good aspect of the term. We don’t really care for ourselves and we constantly feel like we’re nothing more than garbage.

If the police pull us over, we’re practically filth to them until we can come up with a number of someone that can make the fried-chicken-eating officer’s life a living hell, thereby letting us go after apologizing. We are always taught we can’t do anything, taught to behave as if we owe the world something for a crime we never committed.

The real thing I’m concerned about is how we’re treated by our elected officials. These people are your servants, not your masters. They should be the ones licking your boots and kissing your pretty ass, versus you licking their Armanis and Louboutins and hemorrhoid-infested fat asses. Who the fuck are they to be treated like gods? Who the fuck are they to think they should demand that much respect and adoration from us when they don’t even do the jobs we pay them to do?

Do they get us water and electricity? Can you afford fuel? How many tires do you have to change because of crappy roads? How many months do you spend stuck in avoidable traffic per year? I’m sure the answers to those questions are not ones you want or enjoy. And that is why I am writing this post, it’s a post that I hope will mobilize us properly as soon as the next opportunity arises, which to me are the 2013 elections.

Being independent is thought of as silly and hopeless in this country, but that’s because we don’t understand what that means. Independents will not win in a landslide, and that’s understandable. Many people are stupid, and will cling to their parties and religions like cheap gum on an even cheaper shoe. But, there are some of us who really wouldn’t mind sticking out our fingers, and perhaps our tongues, to the gods and goddesses that Lebanon usually elects.

I want us to work actively to make our current MPs fail the next elections. I want us to punish them severely. I want to strip immunity from every single old fart in that disgrace of a parliament we have. I want us to take their bribes, and vote for someone else. I want their photos graffitied over. I want their delegates ridiculed. I want to run mock campaigns and mock candidates. I want us to vote for these mock candidates and make a point that will make the robbers and murderers in our executive and elected positions fall of their high horses and bite the dust.

This is why, I am starting this initiative right here, right now. I want candidates to run for the elections, whether seriously or just to make a point. I myself am announcing my own mock candidacy right now.

I need other people like me to help me mobilize the vision I have for getting us out of this severe depression. I am asking everyone interested to come out and help. Whether you’re a creative person who could help us make election photos, logos, portraits and slogans, please come out! If you think you could run as a mock candidate in a specific province, tell us. If you think you can lend a hand in spreading the word and educating the oblivious, please help us out. If you can help us avoid legal troubles, that’d e much-appreciated.

This isn’t the kind of kumbaya-hold-my-hand-hippie movement calling for tolerance and love. This is a movement which is fed up with everything, thinks everything is at the worst it could be. This is a movement that will dethrone the slave-drivers and keep priests and sheikhs locked up in their churches and mosques instead of courtrooms and bedrooms. This is a movement that will take no prisoners and show no mercy for every single person on the political scene today and in the past. This is a movement, that though will not overrun the country, will at least deal a severe blow to these politicians’ egos and wallets. This is a grass-roots movement that will make the Arab Spring look like potatoes. This movement will be a selfish one, one that cares about providing for our citizens the basic necessities before selling them crap about international courts and religious resistance.

I am writing the official manifesto for this movement with a few friends of mine who are better experienced in the world of law and politics. It will be a flexible one which we will write together and enhance as a movement. We’ll be leaderless and autonomous. We’ll avoid getting into legal trouble and abuse every peaceful loophole that will allow us to succeed. We will never break the law ourselves while punishing the law-breakers.

But the people I’ve taken advice from have all discouraged me. They tell me the Lebanese will never be convinced. They tell me this country doesn’t deserve better. They tell me to leave this country and go somewhere else. I won’t say I think they’re wrong, because nothing we’ve done has proven otherwise. Instead, I’m asking you to join this last-ditch effort. In a time where we have the power and prowess to destroy the current system. I’m asking you to help bring down every single MP and minister who abused the country (meaning all) over the past few decades. Don’t do it cause you’re a sissy freedom-fighter-activist-wannabe. Do it because you have every right to, and can, and because it’s gonna be one hell of a fun ride!

Answer this poll, make us proud guys and prove the people I sought advice from wrong. Stay anonymous for now, just answer the poll below. We need to gauge our power and influence before we go on this endeavor, which can become anything we want it to be. This is not left-wing or right-wing, this is not capitalist or marxist, this is just plain and simply put: selfish. We want our rights, our freedoms, our roads, our services, our everything we’re entitled to, without all the bullshit and bureaucracy and ass-kissing. Don’t let them say you’re just lazy hypocrites who whine but never actually do anything. Let them fear you, let them be scared out of their minds and know that their time as gods is over, and that normal men and women now decide what’s best.

Answer based on the principles, the details will all be worked out in the coming days and weeks. Not even the name is really decided on. I just want to know, are you guys with me? Would you vote for the candidates we announce? Will you participate in the active campaign to make the current MPs fail next elections? Are you ready to ditch the demented deserter Aoun and flower-hugging butcher Geagea? Are you ready to defy your parents who vote like they always have? Are you ready to get what you deserve already?

Through experience, one of the ways in which independents can make a breakthrough is to infiltrate in small numbers. For example, Let’s say there are 10 places in total, independents strive to take 2 seats, while the two other camps each has 4 seats. Thus, the deadlock can only be broken by independents who stick to their plan. What happens is that each camp doesn’t want the other to have a position, so they vote for the independent. (I know that’s very simple, but it’s just a suggestion. It has worked before in smaller elections such as universities. On a bigger scale, it is bound to be trickier.)

Gino, in the last elections, there was a Lebanese-American (i forgot his name) who ran as an independent. He later went on TV (i think MTV or LBC) to talk about his failed experience; how he was approached by the various groups and when he refused to join any, he was denied any air time on TV and he remained in obscurity until he lost. Try to find his name and talk to him maybe he can help with some pointers about what went wrong.

Maybe what we can do in our campains is to say that each voter who wants change, but feels it’s he has to vote for “the gods” can just slip our candidate, we just need some candidates to get high votes, maybe 1 in each voting district.

They got criticized for not revealing their financial backers. I think it’s because the backers obviously also belong to one of the two parties and wanted to stay anonymous for fear of retribution by their own parties in case this doesn’t work.

Maybe the same could happen here, like people getting scared of backing you up because they will lose their “wasta” if their names get published as backing someone other than their natural affiliation.

A real threat to the movement, but then again, most of us don’t have the privilege of wasta, so that’s why I’m confident we will get the support we need.

Also, this can stay mostly anonymous too or maybe backed up and endorsed by influencers in the society immune from the current political groups. In other words, I’m sure we can overcome those details, and if someone is that scared of letting go of their wasta, they probably won’t be supporting us in the first place.

As for fundraising, it’ll be through fun events hopefully and always up-front. After all, we don’t need much besides the candidacy fees for our prospective candidates!

Pirate Party is a label adopted by political parties in different countries. Pirate Parties support civil rights, direct democracy and participation, reform of copyright and patent law, free sharing of knowledge (Open Content), data privacy, transparency, freedom of information, free education, universal healthcare and a clear separation between church and state[citation needed]. They advocate network neutrality and universal, unrestricted access to the Internet as indispensable conditions to some of this.